Institute of Archaeology

Silver production

Investigation of silver production landscapes

Silver is an important metal across time and space; from the Early
Bronze Age onwards provides it both aesthetically pleasing and valuable
artefacts, and since classical Antiquity it is a key economic driver, in the
form of coinage. In contrast to iron and copper, however, its production and
refining are not widely documented and understood, which may be a reflection of
the more complex geological and metallurgical processes that lead to the
production of pure silver.

Thilo Rehren's research has focussed initially on the technical reconstruction
of silver refining through cupellation, the oxidizing melting of silver-bearing
lead-rich alloy which results in the effective separation of silver in metallic
form from all impurities, apart from gold and bismuth. As part of this
investigation Thilo has explored, jointly with the Belgian
School in Greece, the silver ore washeries in
the Lauriotike, refining the extant models of operation and resolving a
long-standing dispute between two leading scholars over the exact nature of the
ore mined and smelted in Antiquity.

More recently, Thilo has focussed on silver production in South America, looking at pre-Colonial and contact period
technologies in comparison to European models. An important aspect of my
research here is on the environmental constraints, particularly on fuel supply
in marginal and arid environments.

The
combination of ore procurement and processing, smelting technology and refining
practice enables me to look at silver production landscapes in a holistic way,
incorporating the different drivers and contsraints into coherent models for
specific regions and periods.

Related outputs

Cohen, C.R., Rehren, Th. and Van Buren, M. (2009): An
archaeo-metallurgical study of the use of European furnaces in colonial Bolivia,
in: Archaeometallurgy in Europe II, 529-540